My story
by s-m-i-l-e724
Summary: havent thought of a title yet, suggestions are very welcome :D Alice Kankouran is the District 12 tribute for The 74th Hunger Games. But thats not all, Peeta, the baker's son for whom she's slowly started falling, has been picked as the male tribute. Crap.
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: I dont own The Hunger Games or the characters except the ones I made up blah blah  
My first fanfiction, please R&R I like constructive criticism :)  
This is a story I've started writing with an original female character, there may be some times when things aren't explained to the fullest and thats cause I'm assuming that whoever is reading this has most likely read and/or watched THG and I did that because I dont seem to get why there's so many stories on here that are basically the book word by word :P  
Enjoy ! :D

"Peeta Mellark."

It's funny how big of an effect Effie Trinket saying his name into the microphone has on me. It rings out above the heads of the District 12 population standing in the Main square in front of the Justice building, all wearing the frighteningly similar grim expression on their faces. I feel as if somebody has punched me in my stomach, hard, and for a brief second I'm scared I'll actually throw up. I keep my lips tightly shut in a thin line, grind my teeth and stare straight ahead, my eyes wide.

It's funny how quickly my mind replays all of our encounters. So unbelievably fast, yet each one so clear and distinct. Our latest one lingers just a slight bit more. Did it really happen just yesterday? There was a storm, the biggest one we've had in years. It came so suddenly, the dark clouds rushed in at an incredible speed, quickly covering the whole sky. The pace of the wind increased, bending trees and ripping off quite a few wooden boards from the small shaky houses of District 12. A tremendous rain started falling, and then it turned into a hail. The wind still hadn't calmed down. The large pieces of hail collided brutally with my face and I realized that I was the only person left walking on the streets. Everyone had taken cover, shut themselves in their homes, locked their doors and closed the shutters on their windows. They were most likely huddled up in a blanket, the harsh wind blowing into the room through the thin cracks in the walls, the less fortunate ones in as many layers of bed sheets that they had and the more fortunate ones next to a fire. "Shit, shit, shit" I muttered when I saw that the house to my right, the one that was closest to me, was on lockdown. I ran to the next one, the bakery. The Mellark family owned it, and their bread was wonderful. I hesitated at the front door. Mrs. Mellark, Peeta's mom, wasn't a friendly woman. Hell, she was nowhere close to being friendly, I've never seen her smile, most of the time she was screaming, at strangers as well as at her sons and I knew for a fact that there had been several occasions when she would strike Peeta and his younger brother across the face, either with her hand or a household object laying around nearby, like a rolling pin, without an ounce of pity. She was miserable. But when a flying branch, luckily a thin one, hit against my left cheekbone, I swung the door open and stepped inside. The door flew back open right after I had closed it, with such a force that for an instant I worriedly thought that it had been completely ripped off its handles. I reached for it to constitute another feeble attempt at closing it, but a pair of large soft hands that I immediately recognized as Peeta's gently pulled me back and closed it firmly, locking it right away because of, I assumed, the same thought that I had, that the second time it would surely be blown off. "Sorry" I said, my voice hoarse. I was soaked, my normally voluminous dirty blonde locks hung in wet strings around my face, and my clothes clung to my body, water not dripping but flowing onto the floor. Mrs. Mellark was going to send me back out there the second she saw me. I would like to find out what it would take to gain her sympathy, now that I thought about it. "It's alright" said Peeta with his signature half-smile playing on his lips and his eyebrows raised. "I.. I'll buy something before I leave, I just can't go back out there for the moment" I said quietly. "Is your mom here?" I added quickly, not giving him the time to reply to what I had said just before. "No, I'm alone. Everyone else is at my uncle's, somebody had to stay behind to watch the bakery." "For some reason I doubt you'll get any customers now" I smirked playfully. He laughed. "I don't think anybody was expecting this storm" he said, "Come on, let's get you out of these clothes." He led me past the display counter and the old-fashioned cash register into a room that I assumed to be the living room. I had never been inside his home, just in his bakery where I stopped by quite often to exchange game for bread. Squirrels mostly, but also the occasional rabbit or deer, that I killed when I went hunting illegally a couple of days a week at dawn in the woods past the fence separating them from our district. The fence was supposed to always be electrified but District 12 is too poor to use electricity for that. You see, I'm handy with a knife. I can throw it to hit a target from quite far away, I have good aim and strength, the knife sticks itself into the animal and stays there. So I don't waste time searching for knives on the ground beneath the sticks and leaves of the woods. Knife throwing, that's when I let my emotions out. Anger, frustration, hurt, those types of feelings usually. Otherwise I'm smiling, dreamily walking around barefoot picking daisies to turn them into necklaces. I get along with as many people as possible, and I try to help around as much as I can. My older brother, Angus, is confused as to why I'm not shitting myself in certain situations, particularly on Reaping day. I prefer to answer "I'm fine", gradually convincing myself at the same time as others. I prefer to keep my knife-throwing skills a secret. Well, I don't lie about it and spend time plotting ways to cover it up, but I don't boast or even talk about it. It's a part of my life that means a lot to me, and it feels nice to keep it a bit personal. Every time I imagine people's faces if ever they stumbled upon me caught up in a knife-throwing frenzy fuming with hysterical annoyance, I can't stop myself from laughing. It just doesn't seem to fit the personality that they know of me. This special therapy of mine is advantageous though, I bring back meat, food for me and my two brothers, and food to sell and exchange for other necessities we lack to survive. Oh, anyways! Peeta provided me with some clean dry clothes and we laughed at the way his t-shirt hung down on me. It was obviously too large, even for him. We sat on a blanket next to his fireplace where a small fire flickered and ate freshly baked bread with warm milk. And we talked. One hour passed, two, three. He watched my face intently and brushed his thumb over the place where I had gotten struck with the branch. And just like that, I realized that I was slowly falling in love with him. I tried to deny it, suppress it, but it was there and I couldn't do anything about it. This was something that was out of my control. And then the storm was over. I had to get out of there. I was running away, but for a good reason. What's the good in falling in love the day before the Reaping just to find out one of you has been chosen to compete in a forced teenage bloodbath and will most likely die in the days to come? I wasn't being pessimistic, I valued realism; I was being smart. Next week, when school resumed, I wouldn't still be running. "Thank you so much for everything, I owe you one and I won't forget" I smiled. He took my face in his hands. Our faces were so close. "Don't worry about it, I had a good time" he paused, "I really, really hope you don't get picked tomorrow." Hours of talking and neither of us had brought up the Reaping. I swallowed and nodded, avoiding looking into his big blue eyes. He was still holding my face in his hands. I put my hand on his hand and let it rest there for a few seconds. Then I took both of his hands off my face, turned away and made my way to the door. He was going to kiss me, I knew it. And that couldn't happen, not yet. Just before I stepped outside, I turned back and said, "It would break my heart if you got picked."

If I hadn't witnessed it, or been caught up in it actually, I would've still been able to tell that there had been a storm. The ground was still soft but thankfully it had dried enough to walk on it without your shoes getting stuck in the mud. There were branches, window shutters, and a bunch of other things, some quite random, laying all over the streets. I walked to the Main square holding my younger brother Jonah's hand. This was his first time in the Reaping. It was my fifth. I guess you could say I had sort of gotten used to it over the years, the nervousness kicked in at some point during the short introduction film that was shown every year before Effie called the names. The fear came when she wiggled her fingers above the bowl containing the papers with the names written on them. This year, however, I'm more scared for Jonah. I can't bear to think of him being chosen, his plump face whitening and his lips parting in shock as the awful realization hits him. The good thing is, he's safe. Because I know I'll volunteer for him. I would never be able to forgive myself if I didn't, and anyway, it'll be just as terrible to watch him in the arena as to be there myself. Angus barely talks until the Reaping's over. We've gotten used to it. He walks next to us and stares straight ahead, his handsome face unusually clean on this day. Every once in a while, he pats my shoulder. I think it calms him down a bit. He confided to me once, and never mentioned it since then, that he feels useless during the Reaping. He's 20, meaning he's not allowed to participate in the Hunger Games anymore. I just shook my head when he told me this, because I undoubtedly know, and even little Jonah understands, that he wouldn't hesitate to volunteer for either one of us if ever we were chosen. Useless is something Angus is not, ever. Nobody could've taken better care of us than him, considering the circumstances, after mom and dad died.

"Alice Kankouran" I froze. The Main square was completely silent, but I felt like there was someone blowing a whistle into each one of my ears. Angus put his hand on my shoulder once again, but he didn't pat it this time. Instead, he squeezed it hard, and I figured that I'd be able to see the red marks of his rough fingers later. Jonah hugged me and started to cry. I planted a kiss on the top of his head, pried his hands from my waist and made my way towards the stage. I felt disconnected from my body, I was walking but I wasn't in touch with my leg muscles. I clenched my fists and dug my nails into my palms. I needed to feel something.

"Peeta Mellark." It's funny how many different intense emotions can run through your body all at once, spreading all the way to the tip of your fingertips and finally shooting up to your brain, like an electric shock


	2. Chapter 2

I felt so numb. I couldn't think, I couldn't talk, I couldn't move, I couldn't feel any sharp pains of horrible emotions that any human, well, most humans, should feel in this situation at this moment. I wanted to stand in the middle of an enormous field, surrounded by tall grass and colorful flowers, nothing in sight other than continuous grass no matter what direction I looked in, and scream. Scream as loud as I could, for as long as I could, until my throat was sore and my vocal cords were damaged.  
Angus and Jonah had visited me, Jonah crying silently into my shirt as he hugged me and Angus cursing in between rushed motivational phrases, telling me I was strong, both emotionally and physically, and reminding me of my knife-throwing skills, assuring me that he couldn't remember a time when I didn't hit my intended target. That was a lie but I could tell he was starting to panic at the thought of me fighting for my life in the arena. He didn't know about Peeta, how connected I felt to him, the special effect he had on me, the fact that no matter how determined or desperate I was, my normally calm nerves and steady head would slip away, and I wouldn't be able to kill him. Or hurt him in any way. The last thing Angus said to me before the peacekeepers swung open the door and announced that the time of the visit was over was, "You have to win, Al. After mom and dad, I can't lose you too." I think it was supposed to encourage me, make me feel better or something, but it didn't. At all. Of course I didn't tell him that even though not all hope was completely lost, the chance of me winning was extremely wary. Now he had just added to the pressure that was forming inside my head, clouding my mind and pushing its way through to my core.  
Madge, the mayor's daughter, and Noah, my best friend, paid me a visit as well. Madge is a year younger than me and the only daughter of the mayor of District 12. There are a few people who judge her based on that sole fact, and I guess they can't be blamed too harshly for that because it's the misery of starvation and their everyday struggle to survive that leads so easily to jealousy. We've grown closer and closer with the years but never too close, there was always just the right amount of hostility. I wasn't quite sure why, but we both liked it that way so it worked well. Noah, he's my best friend, I consider him family. One of my favorite things about our friendship is that he feels the same way towards me. No romantic feelings, no misunderstandings of what we are to each other, no complications. As if two brothers weren't enough for me. Both of these visits were cut short, Marge and Noah were hauled out of the room so quickly that there wasn't even enough time for anyone to get emotional. To my surprise, I also got a visit from Mr. Mellark. I could always tell he was fond of me, just as I was of him, he was a very likable man. I'm guessing Peeta acquired his genuine kindness from him. I think I felt more sorry for him than he did for me, how depressing it must be for him to have Peeta be a tribute. He wished me luck, even thought I knew, and he knew I knew, that if it came down to me and Peeta, no matter how much kindness resided in his heart, he wouldn't wish me any luck in the world. The Games bring out the selfishness in people. Sometimes in life, you have to be selfish to survive. He also told me that if ever anything should happen to me, he would help Angus take care of Jonah. Another reason for me to not be able to find it in my heart to kill Peeta.  
It was an enormous hassle to get through the crowd of photographers flashing their cameras and shoving microphones in our faces, yelling out incomprehensible questions. The high-speed train that would take us to the Capitol in less than a day's time was impressive. My jaw dropped when we walked in, and I didn't bother to close it. The furniture, the decorations, the contrast of colors, the precise detail on every object. And the food! Tables covered with any kind of foods imaginable, several of which I didn't know what they were exactly. I stole a sideways glance at Peeta, who also had an incredulous look planted on his face. His eyes were still visibly red, he had obviously cried during his time spent in the Justice building right after the Reaping. Anger started to bubble inside me, I couldn't bear the thought of Peeta in pain. I was hurting and the Games hadn't even commenced yet. And then a gut-wrenching realization stung me. I needed to distance myself from him, we weren't in this together, it didn't matter how I felt about him anymore. We couldn't become closer friends, especially not lovers, even if all I wanted to do was hold him, kiss every spot on his body and fall asleep in his arms, feeling safe and far away from all the troubles of the world even if it was for just a moment. If I wanted to get home to Angus and Jonah, if I wanted it to hurt less, I had to be smart. I hadn't even noticed that Effie had stopped talking. She flashed us one last smile, a smudge of pink lipstick on her abnormally white front teeth and disappeared from the compartment. There was an uncomfortable silence, like the one at the Reaping, a silence that seems to bore through you for the longest time. "How are you feeling?" Peeta asked. He sounded so... sad. This was the first time that one of us said something to the other since the day before the Reaping. "I've been better" I answered. He chuckled and I looked at him just in time to catch his half-smile that I adore so much. "So what's going on? I kind of zoned out while she was talking." "Well, we're waiting for Haymitch and dinner's at 6:30, it's just in the next compartment. Our bedrooms are down the opposite way, we each get our own bathrooms and we're allowed to wear whatever we want from the closets. That's pretty much it, she just used unnecessarily many more words to convey that message." I laughed. It was going to be so inexplicably difficult to force my feelings for him away. Haymitch stumbled into the compartment. At the Reaping, he was so drunk that he fell off the stage. He didn't seem any more sober now than he was earlier. He's our mentor, having won the Games 14 years ago. But he wouldn't talk about it, so very few people knew how he did it. I can't seem to quite comprehend all that well why so many people throw him looks of disgust and talk loudly of their annoyance with him. Some even go as far as declaring their hate for him. I've always sympathized with him, this must be his way of dealing with the aftermath of the Games. How can you blame someone for not jumping with joy at the sight of their new home in Victor's Village but preferring to be left alone and drinking abusively until their eventual death, when their victory required them to kill and watch others die, some as young as 12 years old? The Hunger Games victory may be a well-deserved one, but it sure as hell isn't a happy one. His conscience will taunt him for the rest of his life. Peeta attempted to jump right into a conversation, reciting a series of question in one breath. "So what's the plan? What's our best chance of getting out of the Cornuccopia bloodbath alive? How do we find shelter? What's your advice?" "Woah, woah, woah! Will you calm yourself? So many questions!" Haymitch took a rather large sip from his glass. "Yeah, you're our mentor. You're supposed to help us" I could clearly hear the annoyance with a hint of disappointment in Peeta's voice. Haymitch gave us an observing look and said, "You want some advice? Stay alive." And with that he burst out laughing, tiny drops of spit flying from his mouth. I rolled my eyes. I hadn't given up, not yet at least, and if I wanted to try to win, I needed all the help I could get. Haymitch was about to take another sip of his drink but his useless so-called advice must've really pissed Peeta off, because he immediately knocked Haymitch's glass out of his hand. The glass shattered and the drink formed a neat puddle under the glass pieces. Haymitch glared at Peeta and swung at him. I didn't even finish shouting "What the hell!" when Peeta caught Haymitch's arm by the wrist just about an inch away from his face. They continued to glare at each other for a good minute before Haymitch ripped his arm from Peeta's strong grip, clicked his tongue and with a nod towards the broken glass said, "You're going to have to clean that up, lad." He stood up and shakily walked out of the compartment, grabbing a bottle of liquor from one of the refreshments tables on the way, cheekily saying "I think I'll finish this in my room." Me and Peeta were alone again, with as much helpful information as before Haymitch had entered. I could hear Peeta's ragged breathing and when I looked at him I saw that his cheeks were slightly pink. "That was a really quick reaction" I said. What I was really wondering was how he knew that Haymitch was going to hit him. "I know when somebody's going to hit me" he answered simply, "They get a cloudy sort of look in their eyes. Their shoulders tense, their muscles twitch a bit." I realized he was speaking from experience. His mom. "Sorry" I whispered. Another short silence was all it took for me to become terribly irritated once again and I promptly stood up, strolling alongside the tables bearing so many different mouth-watering foods. This compartment could probably feed our entire district, producing some rare smiles there. I noticed the tablecloths; gorgeous realistic-looking flowers embroidered finely all over. I swiftly picked up a knife from the table and sent it flying across the compartment, then another, then another. They stuck in the wall next to the door in an almost perfectly straight line. Then I made my way out of the compartment without a word, copying Haymitch in taking a bottle of liquor with me to keep me company in my room.


End file.
